1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for processing information contained on microbeads, each microbead having an elongated body with a code embedded therein along a longitudinal axis thereof to be read by a code reading device; and more particularly to a method and apparatus for aligning the microbeads so the longitudinal axis thereof is in a fixed orientation relative to the code reading or other device.
2. Description of Related Art
Many industries have a need for uniquely identifiable objects or for the ability to uniquely identify objects, for sorting, tracking, and/or identification/tagging. Existing technologies, such as bar codes, electronic microchips/transponders, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and fluorescence and other optical techniques, are often inadequate. For example, existing technologies may be too large for certain applications, may not provide enough different codes, or cannot withstand harsh temperature, chemical, nuclear and/or electromagnetic environments.
Therefore, it would be desirable to obtain a coding element or platform that provides the capability of providing many codes (e.g., greater than 1 million codes), that can be made very small and/or that can withstand harsh environments.
Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus to position and align such coding elements so as to better sense the chemical content and correlate it in relation to the code to determine information about the process.